Learning Italian in Sicily: schools, universities and tandems

In Sicily, English only gets you so far. According to an Il Sole 24 Ore article (May 2025), only 30% of 18–35-year-olds in Palermo speak English at B1 level or above, and Nomads.com rates English as "Okay" in both Palermo and Catania. At the market, at the mechanic's, at the anagrafe (the municipal registry office) or with your landlord, Italian changes the quality of your day. It also changes how people treat you: someone who tries to speak the language quickly goes from tourist to regular.

I live in Catania and every day I see the difference between people who spend three months inside an English bubble and those who, halfway through their stay, order a granita without pointing. Here you'll find the schools we could verify, what's missing in some cities, the language exchanges that are active and a few tricks for practising outside the classroom.

Verified schools

ItaStra, Palermo

The University of Palermo's School of Italian for Foreigners has a new web address: it's now at unipa.it/strutture/scuolaitalianastranieri, and the old itastra.unipa.it redirects there. It's based at the Complesso Monumentale di Sant'Antonino, Piazza Sant'Antonino 1. It offers standard courses, a Winter School of 50 hours split into two 25-hour modules, a Summer School (a third-party portal listed a six-week Intensive Summer School that started on 13 July 2026), Erasmus courses and the "Un anno di italiano" (a year of Italian) programme, and it's a CILS exam centre. The office is open to the public on Tuesday and Thursday from 17:00 to 19:00.

Two warnings. When we checked, a November semi-intensive course was already sold out, so move early. And we couldn't find fees for adults from outside the university, which means people coming to work remotely: they're on the "Calendario e tariffe" page or you'll need to ask the school.

International House, Palermo

At Via Quintino Sella 70, near Politeama, recognised since 1982. The price list valid from September 2025 to July 2026 gives the group course at €220 a week for 15 hours, Monday to Friday, in classes of 6 to 12 students, plus €65 registration; one-to-one lessons cost €60 an hour, registration included. Four weeks of group lessons at that price list come to €945. Check the 2026–27 price list before booking.

Babilonia, Taormina

At Via Timoleone 10 (+39 0942 23441, office 08:30–17:00). Group and one-to-one courses from one week to one year, Italian combined with cooking, ceramics, hiking, diving or food and wine, business Italian, courses for over-50s, online lessons and CELI preparation and exams, with a weekly social programme included. It also helps with accommodation. Prices can't be read on the homepage: ask directly. It's a member of ASILS, the Italian schools association.

Solemar Academy, Cefalù

At Via M. C. Tomasini 5 (Monday–Friday 09:00–18:30). The right website is solemar-academy.com, which publishes 2026 prices: the Standard course (20 lessons a week) costs €240 for one week, €450 for two, €830 for four and €1,470 for eight; the Intensive (30 lessons) €390 for one week and €1,430 for four. One-to-one lessons cost €35 for 45 minutes, or €320 for a pack of ten. Registration €50 (€25 for students). The school is open all year and says long stays between October and May are common: a useful detail if you're working remotely through the winter. CELI and DILS-PG exams. Beware of an old domain linked to the school, which now contains spam links: only use the one given here.

Laboling, Milazzo (unconfirmed)

At Via Nino Ryolo 20 in Milazzo, the port for the Aeolian Islands. Intensive courses, campus, over-50s, CILS preparation (it's an exam centre), one-to-one and online lessons and an "Italian on the Aeolian Islands" course, from €280. The site is online but shows no year on course dates, so we treat it as unconfirmed.

According to ASILS, its only member schools in Sicily are three: Cefalù, Milazzo and Taormina.

School and work: fitting them together

The real issue for remote workers is the timetable. Some reference points from the published programmes: International House's group course is 15 hours a week, Monday to Friday, so about three hours a day; Solemar's Standard is 20 lessons a week; ItaStra's Erasmus semi-intensive courses in 2026 were 40 hours, three afternoons a week, in person. In practice, with a morning group course you keep the afternoon and evening for work, which with clients in other time zones can even suit you.

On budget, four weeks cost €880 at Solemar (Standard plus registration) and €945 at International House on the 2025–26 price list: more than a month's rent on a one-bedroom flat in central Palermo according to Numbeo (€618). If money is tight, I'd suggest a month of school at the start, then tandems and a few targeted one-to-one lessons.

Catania and Siracusa: one active school, one gap

In Catania the University's school for foreigners, ITALSTRA, is active. It's based at the Monastero dei Benedettini (Piazza Dante 32), it published the enrolment notice for its first-semester 2026/27 course in Italian language and culture (deadline 25 September 2026), it posted news on 4 November 2026, and a 65-hour second-semester course is planned. It mainly serves university and Erasmus students, but the semester course is open to foreigners: check eligibility and fees, which aren't on the homepage, by writing to italstra@unict.it. The university language centre only lists Spanish, English and German courses. A private Catania school listed on Wikivoyage now has a domain that redirects to a tour operator, so we don't consider it active.

Siracusa is still the gap. The Italian Academy, Chiacchiere Italian School and SCIE Center appear on aggregator sites, but when we checked on 4 November 2026 their own websites were redirecting, under construction, for sale or "coming soon", so we can't recommend any of them. For both cities the advice is the same: ask at the coworkings (at Isola in Catania, Wednesday is the open day, "Isola Connect") and add a tandem.

Language exchanges and active communities

• ESN Catania is open to "all international people" who are young and live in the city (Erasmus students, trainees, au pairs) and runs a tandem programme; events are announced on social media.
• ESN Palermo organises tandems, city tours and themed events. The University of Palermo also runs structured tandems, such as the German–Italian one in September 2025.
• BlaBla Language Exchange is listed with recurring meetings in Messina, every other Wednesday, and in June 2026 held a nomad meetup in Catania. The pages didn't open for us: check the calendar.
• Nomade Table dinners in Catania aren't a language exchange, but they're a place to meet people; everyone pays for their own meal and registration is mandatory.
• The Italia Nomad Fest (Palermo, 6–14 March 2027) aims for an audience that's half Italian and half international: a week of conversations in two languages.

What doesn't exist: InterNations has no community in Palermo or Catania, and the Italian–English tandem at Palermo's Casa della Cooperazione that you'll find online dates from 2020 and is probably no longer running. For the full list of communities see the Everyday life and language chapter.

Certificates, briefly

If you need a certificate, in Sicily you'll find three acronyms: CILS (exam centres at ItaStra in Palermo and Laboling in Milazzo), CELI (Babilonia in Taormina, Solemar in Cefalù) and DILS-PG (Solemar). Before enrolling, ask the office or body requesting the certificate which one it accepts and at what level.

Daily practice, outside the classroom

A lesson lasts three hours; the day lasts much longer. A few habits that work:

• Shop at the market. At Ballarò, listen to the "abbanniate", the vendors' sing-song calls; at the Pescheria, ask what came in today. Concrete vocabulary, repeated every day.
• Order at the counter, not at the table. Short phrases, instant feedback, and it costs less.
• Learn the local words. Palermo says arancina, Catania arancino. Catania's "Fera 'o Luni" is the "Monday fair". "Controra" is the southern name for the early afternoon, when many shops close. Pani câ mèusa is ordered "schietta" (with lemon) or "maritata" (with ricotta and caciocavallo). On the bill, the "coperto".
• Use the coworking, not just the desk. Go to events and open days: the coffee break with colleagues becomes a free lesson.
• Say that you're learning. "Sto imparando l'italiano, mi parli piano?" (I'm learning Italian, could you speak slowly?) opens almost every door. In my experience, in Catania someone may answer you in dialect as a joke: laugh along and ask them to repeat.

Sicilian dialect is a chapter of its own, and you don't need to learn it. You need to recognise it, and to understand that when the fishmonger switches to Italian, it's for your benefit.

Checklist for your first three months

1. Choose a school for the first four weeks: ItaStra or International House in Palermo, Babilonia in Taormina, Solemar in Cefalù.
2. Book early: university courses sell out.
3. In Catania, write to ITALSTRA about the semester course; in Siracusa, ask the coworkings directly; in both, add a tandem.
4. Sign up for an ESN event or a Nomade Table dinner in your first week.
5. Shop at the market at least twice a week, talking.
6. If you need a certificate, check first which acronym is required.

To choose a city with language in mind too, read Palermo or Catania and my Catania guide.